DHAKA: Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus was appointed chief adviser to Bangladesh's interim government on Tuesday, a day after Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country following a violent crackdown on student uprisings.
Local media reported late Tuesday, citing a statement and officials from the president's office, that Younes was appointed to the post by Bangladesh President Mohammad Shahabuddin after meeting with student leaders and the heads of the three military services.
Yunus, 84, and his Grameen Bank, a microcredit organization, won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to lift millions of people out of poverty by providing small loans of under $100 to the poor in rural Bangladesh.
Student leaders had said they wanted Younes as a senior adviser to the interim government, and a spokesman for Younes said he agreed. Yunus is in Paris for medical procedures and is expected to return to Dhaka soon.
In response to this appointment, no immediate comment was made by him. It was also not immediately clear when the interim government would take over.
Earlier on Tuesday, Shahabuddin dissolved the parliament and opened the way for the interim government and new elections.
His office also announced that the leader of the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party, former prime minister Begum Khaleda Zia, who had a decades-long feud with Hasina, had been released from house arrest.
The student protesters had threatened to have more demonstrations if the parliament was dissolved.
Shahabuddin had previously said that the interim government will hold elections soon after taking office. Nahid Islam, one of the key organizers of the campaign against Hasina, said in a video message: “No government other than the one we recommended will be accepted.”
The movement that ousted Hasina arose out of protests against public sector job quotas for families of veterans of Bangladesh's 1971 war of independence, seen by critics as a tool to reserve jobs for allies of the ruling party.
In the violence that has occurred in the country since July, around 300 people were killed and thousands were injured.
After protesters stormed and ransacked the prime minister's luxury residence on Monday, the streets of the capital Dhaka were quiet again on Tuesday, with fewer traffic lights than usual and many schools and businesses closed during the unrest remaining closed.
Garment factories, which supply some of the world's top brands and are a mainstay of the economy, will reopen on Wednesday after being closed due to disruptions, the main garment manufacturers' association said.
Hasina's defection ends her second 15-year term in power in the country of 170 million people, which has spent 20 of the last 30 years at the head of a political movement inherited from her father, Mujibur Rahman, the state's founder, after whom she ruled. did. He was assassinated in 1975.
Since the early 1990s, Hasina has been at odds with her rival Zia, who inherited her political movement from her husband, Zia-ur-Rehman, a ruler who was himself assassinated in 1981, and shifted power.
The second day of freedom
Younis, who was indicted by a court in June on embezzlement charges, told India's Times New Television that Monday was Bangladesh's “second freedom day” after the country's 1971 war of independence from Pakistan.
But he said Bangladeshis were angry with neighboring India for allowing Hasina to land there after fleeing Dhaka.
“India is our best friend… People are angry with India because you are supporting someone who ruined our lives,” Yunus said.
The protests against Hasina were partly fueled by poverty. After years of strong economic growth fueled by the expansion of the garment industry, the $450 billion economy struggled with costly imports and inflation, and the government sought a bailout from the International Monetary Fund.
Hasina has been accused of becoming increasingly authoritarian, and many of her political enemies have been jailed. His resignation was met with a jubilant crowd, and after he fled on Monday, they stormed his lavish compound without opposition, taking away furniture and televisions.
Hasina flew to India and is staying in a safe house outside Delhi. Indian media reported that Hasina may travel to Britain, where her family, including her niece, is a government minister.
Reuters could not confirm his plans. The British Home Office declined to comment.
Student leaders said they had received reports of attacks on minority groups, including Hindu temples, in the Muslim-majority country and called for restraint.
Hundreds of Hindu homes, businesses and temples have been destroyed since Hasina's ouster, a community association said on Tuesday. India said it was concerned about the incidents.
Reuters could not confirm the scale of the reported incidents, and police officers did not return calls seeking comment.
Hindus make up about eight percent of Bangladesh's 170 million people and have historically largely supported Hasina's largely secular Awami League rather than the opposition bloc, which includes a hard-line Islamist party.
